– Five factors were identified: Interest in STEM, Student self-confidence, Impact of the teacher, Perception of homework assignments, and Intention to pursue further study.
– The direct effect between student self-confidence and interest in STEM decreases because of the other intervening variables while the direct effect of each of the three predictors increases due to the effect of the other intervening variables.
– If gender is taken as a control factor and the analysis is repeated only for Qatari male students, intention to pursue further study is ruled out and interest in STEM is significantly predicted by impact of
the teacher, student self-confidence, and perceptions of homework assignments.
– If gender is used as a control factor and the analysis is repeated only for female Qatari students, then interest in STEM is significantly determined only by impact of the teacher and perceptions of homework assignments.
– If grade is used as a control factor and the analysis is repeated only for Qatari preparatory school students (grades 8 and 9), interest in STEM is significantly determined by the four variables of student self-confidence, impact of the teacher, perceptions of homework assignments, and intention to pursue further study.
– If grade is used as a control factor and the analysis is repeated only for secondary Qatari students (grades 11 and 12), interest in STEM is significantly determined only by impact of the teacher and perception of homework assignment.
2017 - A Path Analysis of Student Interest in STEM, with Specific Reference to Qatari Students
Data came from the 2015 Qatar Education Study (QES 2015). Overall, the study involved 660 students, 380 preparatory students (184 in grade 8 and 196 in grade 9) and 280 secondary students (136 in grade 11 and 144 in grade 12). Forty-two schools were sampled for this study, with four schools refusing to participate. Classrooms were randomly chosen in 38 schools and all students in selected classrooms participated in the survey.
There are four main types of schools in this study: Independent (public) schools, international private schools, Arabic private schools and community schools that follow the curricula of particular countries.
DV: STEM interest (16 items measured using Likert scales)
IV: gender (female=1, male=0), grade level (8th and 9th grades were collapsed into preparatory school and 11th and 12th grades into secondary school)